‘Srikanth’ review: Insipid rendering of a fascinating life
Srikanth, the first three rows were taken up by children on a school trip. I won’t say they were rivetted throughout; there was a lot of squealing and shushing and bouncing in seats. Still, I think the kids got more out of the film and liked it a lot better than I did.
I’m not trying to be flippant. So much of Hindi cinema is explaining complex stories in a way a 10-year-old would understand. Tushar Hiranandani’s film is based on the real-life story of Srikanth Bolla, a visually challenged man from a village in Andhra Pradesh who became a successful entrepreneur.
It’s a simplistic rendering of a remarkably determined journey, jumping from achievement to achievement while periodically lobbing moral instruction at the viewer. Srikanth, played by Rajkummar Rao, 39, is introduced as a bright high-schooler who causes a stir when he takes on the board of education over the sciences being unavailable to visually challenged students. This sets up a pattern: Srikanth is told he can’t do something because he’s blind and, through talent and sheer force of will, he goes out and does it.
The real Srikanth actually played on the national blind cricket team; he really was the first overseas blind student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hiranandani and writers Jagdeep Siddhu and Sumit Purohit might argue that, incredible as they may seem, these are the facts of Bolla’s life. Nevertheless, it is their responsibility to make remarkable events seem credible, and Srikanth never manages that.
Everything has to be a record, a near-miracle. Every exam he gives, he tops. The first time he swings a baseball bat, he hits a home run.
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